1) I very much agree that governance can make or break a project. However, the actual governance approach often ends up making less difference than the people involved. 2) While the FreeBSD and XFree examples do point to some real problems with the "core" model it seems that there are many other projects that are using it quite successfully. 3) at least in the XFree case, maybe the biggest issue was not the core (or the board), but the fact that discussions and decision making process were kept secret (and restriction to CVS, EVEN read-only) -- this does not seem to be inherent to the "core" model at all, and not how nupy will even operate. 4) the biggest issue numpy has faced in years is a lack of people that can/will/do actually contribute code itself. there simply isn't a big group f folks waiting to step up and be the president. And the "leader", president of BDFL, etc, while primarily being a management role, needs to be fully technically competent -- there are very few people qualified at this point, and I suspect none of them want that job. -- in theory, one can manage without the technical competency, but does anyone have a single example of a successful open-source software project run by a good manager that isn't a top technical expert? All the BDFLs I know of are absolutely top of the heap technically. 5) Sadly, at the end of the day, democracy is often a way to make very poor decisions. So -- it seems there is consensus that we need to formalize the governance of numpy. And honestly, I don't think there are any other options that would work at this point with the current community. And the biggest point: while forking may well demonstrate a complete failure of the governance of a project -- it also represents a success of open-source. In fact, when I read Mathew's history of X11 -- it seems the biggest impediment at each stage were the efforts to make it less that truly open-source. -Chris -- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception Chris.Barker@noaa.gov